Many people say they love God and yet it is all an act. It is easy to love somebody you cannot see but hard to love a brother right in front of you.

I refuse to answer for anybody else because it is a full-time job trying
to answer for myself. I must confess, though, I sometimes cannot give a
good answer for myself. I can give an answer, but not a good one, and
when it comes to answers, the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage
demands good ones.
How do you explain yourself to someone when you cannot even explain
yourself to yourself? I do not pretend to be a man of mystery, but many
things about Yours Truly I certainly do not understand.
For one, I am not an actor. I want to make that very plain to all and
sundry. Within the confines of my presence, are absolutely no acting
skills.
I have some friends who are always acting like a fool. I am assuming
they are acting and give them the benefit of the doubt. Another friend
of mine at certain times acts dumb. I have known him for a very long
time and I can usually tell when he is acting. By the way, he is a very
good actor. Many of my friends are excellent actors and if they ever
were competing for some Oscar or Emmy award, they would come pretty
close to winning.
I am another story. It is very difficult for me in the area of acting.
With me, what you see is what you get. I suppose when you boil it all
down, I am just not smart enough to be a good actor. I am not even
smart enough to be a bad actor.
Putting all of this in context, I must confess that my wife believes I
am a great actor. I have tried to dissuade her from this opinion, but
up to this point, I have not been successful. When she thinks of me she
always says, “And the Emmy goes to...”
How she came to this point, I'm not quite sure. No matter what I do, she
still holds to this personal opinion of me. I keep telling her that I
am not that good of an actor, which she keeps smiling and nodding her
head in my direction.
Some examples need to be given here to show my point.
Just the other night we were at a restaurant with some friends, having a
good time, or so I thought. I must say when I'm on a roll, I'm on a
roll. But all during my “roll,” I kept feeling somebody under the table
kicking me. I ignored it thinking perhaps our friends did not quite
know what they were doing. Never once did I suspicion my companion with
this action. I kept rolling on.
Finally, both of them excused themselves to take a break and when they
were out of hearing distance, my wife said to me, “Will you stop acting
so foolish?”
I looked at her, not quite knowing what she was referring to, and said
quite innocently, “But, my Precious, [it's a name I use when I'm in
trouble but don't know why] I'm not acting.”
She gave me one of “those looks” and said, “Stop acting foolish.”
This is what I admire about my wife. She has the highest opinion of my
abilities, particularly in the area of the thespian arts. Our friends
were coming to the table when I was about to tell her I was not acting
foolish, it just came natural.
Another example comes to mind.
I remember she was trying to explain something to me one time. I do not
know what it was now. It was something to do with something in the
garage, a place I have not been for years, and I was not connecting the
dots, as they say. She was going into a long dissertation on what
needed to be done and I was just standing there staring at her. I was
trying to understand what she was saying, but nothing was clicking
upstairs, if you know what I mean.
In the middle of her dissertation, she stopped, looked at me intensely,
placed both hands on her hips and said, “Don't act so dumb.”
Smiling broadly, I whispered, “My Precious, I'm not acting.”
With a glare that could have intimidated good old Goliath, she quipped,
“I'm coming to believe you're right. You are not acting. You're just
naturally dumb.”
Somebody once sang a song called, “I gotta be me” which has become my
theme song. What you see is what you get, when you are dealing with me.
I am not smart enough to act and I am too old to play. Therefore, it
all boils down to this one thing, I am what I am, like it or lump it.
I do not like it when people pretend to be something they are not. I
want people to be real with me. This is doubly true with my
relationship with God. He is honest with me and I want to be absolutely
honest with him.
“If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he
that loveth not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom
he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20).
Many people say they love God and yet it is all an act. It is easy to
love somebody you cannot see but hard to love a brother right in front
of you.
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